


most beautiful of sights the dark earth offers

by casualbird



Series: gilbert week 2020 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Canon, Repression, gay rights for gay knights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: The images lingered in him, standing dumbstruck in the rain that morning. The way Lonato’s sure fingers would flex when Gilbert relieved them of their gauntlets. His hands would be cold, likely, shivering in pre-dawn gloom, in rain and sweat run frigid, and Gilbert would clasp them between his own, shelter them ‘til they’d warmed through.Gilbert is quite sure he oughtn't think of Lonato like this.
Relationships: gilbert/lonato
Series: gilbert week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877788
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22
Collections: Gilbert Week 2020





	most beautiful of sights the dark earth offers

**Author's Note:**

> gilbert used another name when he was younger but like. for user friendliness here. he is just gilbert.
> 
> this takes place at least 20 years pre-canon

_  
she's not here, and i'd rather see her lovely  
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on  
all the troops in lydia in their chariots and  
glittering armor.  
_

* * *

Gilbert harbored no illusions of the drudgery of squiring. He’d lived it himself, from fourteen to twenty-one; stood sentry over prisoners, borne shields, currycombed war-horses ’til they shone. Held aloft the standards, honed the halberd-blades, scrubbed endless rust and blood and tarnish out of plate.

There’d been many reasons why the day of his knighting was among the proudest of his life; not least of them was that he had the spine and joints of a man three decades his senior. If the best of honor and chivalry was to be his, he’d hope that he’d be able to bend his fingers for it.

A proud but arduous memory, not all of it the stuff of nostalgia. He had humility, he thought, but he could die satisfied if he was never again obliged to remove clangoring, blood-sticky mail from a man staggering half-dead off the field.

So it made no sense when at one daybreak Lonato crested the muddy hill of their camp and Gilbert panged, felt himself seized with the impulse to help him from his horse. To assist him to his tent, lending a shoulder if need be, to stand him panting, as steady as possible in the center, and strip him of his shell.

The rain was heavy that day, pattering on canvas, pinging off molded metal. It evoked a vivid image, but even in this -- this half-lit flight of fancy, Gilbert cowed at the thought allowing himself to watch the rivulets it ran down Lonato’s breastplate, study the drips from the ends of his epaulettes.

Helping a man out of armor, after all, was a task to be expedited. Even a knight like Lonato would be weary, bearing the weight of it all night. Gilbert knew this well, had had it stamped upon his mind like a brand on a horse; still, he could only imagine moving deliberately. Taking care the joints wouldn’t pinch, and watching--

The images lingered in him, standing dumbstruck in the rain that morning. The way Lonato’s sure fingers would flex when Gilbert relieved them of their gauntlets. His hands would be cold, likely, shivering in pre-dawn gloom, in rain and sweat run frigid, and Gilbert would clasp them between his own, shelter them ‘til they’d warmed through.

He’d never thought of it like this. Stripping armor was _work,_ it always had been, so where--?

Where did this indulgence come from? Gilbert recalled spending the lion’s share of that day with teeth deep in his cheek, interrogating.

Lonato was a good knight, he knew. Hale and healthy, strong, but nothing could distract from his solemnity, the way he carried himself. Lonato was precious to Gilbert’s company, precious to the crown. It was rational, to want to see him well looked-after.

To arrange his armor on the floor, an articulated exoskeleton; to press a tin cup of water in his hand. Check him for injuries, even reach in, tenderly, to daub off the split in his lip, salve the place at the nape of his neck where their helms were wont to chafe.

That had never been a part of the procedure -- there were always wounded, people who were truly in want of attention, of a dirty, cauterizing triage. And even this frenzy wasn’t Gilbert’s sphere.

It had to be… the bold angle of Lonato’s jaw, the regal column of his spine. The kindness in him, irrepressible even on the most ill-starred of days. The breadth of his knowledge, his unwavering grace. The way his hand felt, firm and soothing, when it gripped Gilbert’s shoulder, pressing into him the purest camaraderie, affection. He was like a statue, a lai and legend ready-made, he was…

It was a sin, Gilbert chided himself, prickling with it over and over like the suturing of a wound. To privilege one of his kindred above others, to shiver within arm’s length of him. The impulse to kneel before him, with or without the thin premise of unfastening his greaves, was a grievous wound to honor.

Gilbert served, it was true, but king, country, Mother only. The crown of Faerghus, the corona of the Goddess. Fealty was rightly theirs -- was not to be left, quivering, at the feet of a comrade … of another man.

The dissonance of it jarred him, when he wrangled himself back to his wits. How long he’d been standing, he wasn’t sure, but -- Lonato had gone. Found his own squire, wiped the battle-grime from his own face. Carried on, in the spirit of duty, right action, in complete ignorance of Gilbert’s…

His -- whatever it was.

Nothing, he’d pronounced it, stern inside his mind. It was nothing, and he marched forward over it like so much battlefield dust.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! thanks for reading! i hope you're enjoying gilbert week--i myself have three more pieces left for all of you, so unfortunately the party will not be stopping.
> 
> let me know what you thought of this--i just can't shake the concept that young gilbert would have been Ass Over Teakettle for lonato!!! and, so long as you're 18+, come discuss sad dads with me on [twitter!]()
> 
> also--epigraph and title are from sappho's anaktoria poem, which is one of my favorites. stan mother sappho


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